After skimming the report...
I skimmed the report and it wasn't as damaging as I thought it would be to Pettitte and even Clemens.
As for Pettitte, it basically has him using for a couple of weeks while he was on the DL in 2001. That's it.
As for Clemens, it also doesn't have him using after 2001. It was after that his dominant Astro years. Also the timing means that neither of them failed a drug test. I can't imagine either would be suspended as the players' union would never hear for it.
Also, as for their trainer who ratted them out, that didn't happen until after a report that Clemens fired him. The Daily News reported that Clemens let him go in June, his first conversation with Mitchell was in July.
I'm not saying the trainer is lying, but in a court of law a case against Clemens would come up very short. They don't have Clemens ever buying anything. They have no positive drug test. The trainer had previously been quoted as saying that he never gave Clemens anything and the story only changed after Clemens fired him.
I'm not saying it's not true, and while it will hold up in the court of public opinion, it would not under reasonable doubt in a court of law.
1 comment:
Yeah, but...
This would never be heard in a court of law, so it doesn't matter. At all. If the guy lied, there were federal agents sitting right next to him who could have nailed him for it. Now, do they have evidence other than the Grimsley affidavit to prove that he could be lying? That I don't know.
The fact is that his former trainer *and* a former teammate have now fingered him for using steroids. That's more evidence than we have against McGwire and Sosa. His trainer injected him for four years - end of story.
Now, I do agree that Pettitte doesn't look that bad. If he took HGH for a week or two to recover from an injury, then he's probably one of hundreds to have done so. The knock against him now is going to be that he flat out said "I have never taken performance enhancing drugs" when the Grimsley names first came out. So he definitely lied about that, which I think people will hold against him more than what he actually did.
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